Pages

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Yes, I know, it's been a while since I've been posting stuff, but as you know, I promised never to post something, just because I felt obligated to post something. I'd rather bring you good quality post every once in a while, that I'm really excited about than spam you with mediocre stuff every day.

And boy, am I excited about this post!

First things first: a few months ago I was visiting friends in Berlin, Germany. I was staying at Iris' place that week and Iris and I were taking a walk along the river, when suddenly a twenty-something girl walked up to me and asked me to take a picture of me, because she really liked my fashion style.

I was flattered and of course I said yes, so this girl took two Polaroid pictures of me. She then asked me for my name and my email address and told me, that she was gathering pictures for a magazine, that would feature the Berlin street style. Then she left and I honestly thought I was never gonna hear from her again.

Wrong. A few days back she contacted me, announcing that my pictures ended up being in the magazine! But that's not all, there was even a short article about the Berlin street style, where she interpreted my style choices; the following piece can be found in the article:

"Within the crowds stood Italian born Markus Klammer, who is currently living in Berlin. He was the epitome of laid-back style. His neglected roots suggested he had once given great thought to his appearance, and his predominantly black outfit from a distance suggested that he wanted to be unnoticed. However, the subtle leather finishing detail on his jacket stood out and complimented the layering of his shorts over trousers. Closely examined, it was clear great consideration had been taken to create his look."

Needless to say, I am over the moon and let me just add a polite "Suck on that, haters!" to all the nay-sayers that think my style is weird (there are a lot).

The magazine's name is "end/magazine", it will come out biannually, this is the first issue. According to the creative minds behind it it focuses on up and coming British designers.

Monday, March 17, 2014

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed a few days ago, I saw a picture
of a friend posing like Lana del Rey. In the comment section there was this one comment saying: "This picture may look like Lana,
but you most certainly sing better than her!"

While
one might argue about Lana del Rey's vocal abilities (and let me just
say here, I adore her songs and her voice), it wasn't the comment under
the picture that bothered me.

It was the fact that I completely
disagreed with it, but didn't feel free enough to voice my opinion. I could have written"not true, her voice is great" - but I didn't.

This got me thinking: I had just told a lie. A small lie, a lie by omission. And I hadn't even noticed or done it consciously, it just sort of happened. So I couldn't help but wonder:

How
often do we lie in our daily lives and how many of those lies are
purposefully chosen as opposed to the ones that just sort of happen?

As
I went on with my life these past few days I started to notice lies
everywhere. There are lies we tell people, so they don't get hurt ("What
a great hair cut!") and there are lies we make up to keep ourselves from getting hurt ("No, I have never smoked pot").

Or take publicity for
instance: they say the average person living in a major city is exposed to as many as 400 ads on a daily basis,
and we all know publicity lives off of lies: "Pick this deodorant and
girls will love you"; "use this moisturizer and you will look like a
20-something again" and so on.What baffles me is that there must be people, who believe these lies; why else would these marketing strategies work?

If
we look closely, we are surrounded by a myriad of lies each and every
day. Is it inevitable then that we start lying about everything too? And
if this is true, does it mean the world consists mostly of lies? And what would happen, if we stepped out of it now? Would everything fall apart? Or are we in too deep in the lying game?

Sometimes lies come in shiny wrappings like publicity, other times we're having trouble deciding, whether or not we're being lied to.

Take
my uni courses, for example: Today I had my first class of General
Medicine, an area of Medicine, which is notoriously unpopular among the
younger generations of physicians. The teacher made us fill out a
questionnaire about what we think about General Medicine at first, and
then she spent the whole morning illustrating the perks of being in Primary
care. It was sort of a publicity, but very subtle. So subtle in fact,
that I only noticed after a few hours that we were being brainwashed.

Of
course, some other students might not feel that way. They might say,
the teacher did well in bringing out the good sides of this dying medical speciality. That it's good to raise awareness for it among young students. Because sometimes a lie can be true for someone, who chooses to believe it.

"My clothes are not flashy, they are stylish. And all of you haters are just jealous of my style."
While this can be true for the person in question, for others it can be
terribly wrong. "My English is really good." This might be true,
considering the person is not a native speaker, but on an absolute scale
their English could be excruciatingly mediocre.

My point is, the world is not just black and white, but there are many shades of grey.

Sometimes
it is hard to tell a lie from the truth. And sometimes it's hard to
differentiate a stinking lie from an eloquent embellishment to enhance a certain
message.

So where exactly does enhancing a message stop and where does the lying begin? And does the end of the lie sometimes justify the means?

I
don't say we need to stop lying altogether. A little white lie here
and there is proven to be beneficiary. But I must admit, I was never
aware of how much lies form our day-to-day lives.

Pay attention for a day or two and try to spot all the lies.You'd be surprised.

If you liked this post, feel free to comment in the section below! You can follow me here for more:

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

So I guess the last weeks I
spent on Grindr start to pay off. You don't know what Grindr is? It's
this dating app for gay guys, that allows you to see, what gay guys
there are in your neighborhood and if you want, you can start to chat.That's all. A lot of people use it for hook-ups, I personally was just trying to make gay friends for these nights, when I feel like I just wanna be gay and dance to Britney.

I'm not gonna lie to you, a lot of the people using this app are
older, creepy guys, who will just do anything for a little sucky-sucky-time, and yes, I feel sorry for them, because obviously they're
desperate, but honestly: it's not my duty to please all the lonely old
men out there.

So as flattering as it is getting pictures of
sperm-covered penises, dick pic selfies with a
toilet bowl in the background and constantly being asked, if I wanted to
play doctor's - starting a conversation like this is not my cup of tea.

So
I waited. I waited for my Prince Charming to come along on his white Internet-horse to rescue me from the claws of horny old men. While
I'm not entirely sure, if my Prince Charming has already shown up, I am
glad to say, I made a few very nice acquaintances.

Get this:
last Saturday night I was having fun in a dance club with my (straight)
friends, when I decided, that said club was a tad too straight for me.
Although my friends told me that usually the place is crawling with
gays, I have a terrible gaydar, so obviously I felt like a blind chicken
in a barn full of cocks (yes, pun intended).

I went on Grindr to see,
if there are any rainbow unicorns around. Of course there was nobody online in the
club (obviously everyone had a better gaydar than me), but some guy living nearby hit me up and was like: we should
meet, will you come to my house and fuck me hard?

Well, though a little unsubtle and brusque, I must admit I was kind of flattered, plus his (face) pictures looked
quite nice, he was my age and in Medicine as well. At first I was a little hesitant, but my friend in the club convinced me to go for it.

So I did it: I said, yes, come pick me up in front of the club, and let's see where this all ends up.

I was kind
of nervous and insecure, when I walked out on the street, incessantly vowing
to myself to call things off the second they get weird and promising my
friend to send an "I'm alright" text, when I would get home.

So there I
was, out on the street at 5.30 am, waiting for a complete stranger, who had asked me about my penis size just 10 min earlier, to pick me up in his
SUV, and I thought to myself: Yes. Finally I am putting myself out there.

I don't care what happens, because I'm so proud of myself for being back in
the dating game. There is nothing like knowing someone wants you so
bad, that he's willing to get up in the dead of night to pick you up,
half drunk, sweaty from dancing, without even knowing you.

To make a long story short, we didn't do it. He picked me up in his
black Nissan Quashquai, we had a super nice conversation and he brought
me home straight away. Can you imagine? He basically picked me up and
brought me home, it was like my own private cab. I was thrilled at how
many nice people there were around.

We said goodbye, promising to stay in touch.

Yesterday
the dating saga went on, as I found myself on a date with another guy
from grindr. Have I finally broken the forever alone curse?

The
great thing about this date yesterday is that we had a lot of things in
common: both of us want to go to the US one day, both of us get stared
at by the Lisbon people because of our hair (God knows why!), we both
bite our nails and last but not least we have the same name! (I always
wanted to date someone with the same name, just for the fun of it - and
because it's only possible in gay relationships).

I didn't feel
too much romantic connection, though, which is ok, because he was super
nice and I think we can at least be friends.

On the bright side
this allows me to get back into the dating world, because of course I'm a
little rusty in this field. Plus I enjoy getting ready for a date, I put
on the Smiths on my phone, I put hoe face on my hoe face (meaning I put on my make up) and enjoy myself. Nothing like it.

Could this be
it? The enjoyable single life everyone is always referring to? I love
going on dates, I love everything about it. That's not new to me.

What's new
is that now I know, how to get them. Like to read more? Don't be shy and follow me on your favourite social network:

Thursday, February 20, 2014

I have a pretty cool video prepared for you today, I found this again on Upworthy.

This fabulously funny Irish drag queen, Panti Bliss, talks about, what homophobia means to her, how she feels oppressed in her day to day life, and beautifully illustrates it with seemingly common stories from fer life. and she does all of this, while delivering such an important message:

"Oppression happens more quickly and more subtly than you might think and not always will these actions be covered in the media. Furthermore, homophobia cannot be blamed on one single person, but is the result of a society that teaches the wrong values."

While watching this, I was close to tears sometimes, and burst out in laughter on other times. These are 10 minutes well spent.

Watch the video below and then write in the comments, if you agree with her or not; share your opinion, we're happy to hear all of them. Just no hate :)

If you'd like to read more of me, don't forget to follow me on my social media. Lots of love,-M

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

I write this post, as I am sitting on my friend's couch in Berlin. Yesterday was my big trip, Lisbon-Berlin, basically a day you can erase from the calendar, because I didn't do much except for sitting, trying to sleep and not being able to, because some overly motivated stewardess wanted to make sure I'm not dehydrated offering me a freaking drinks every other second.

But here I am, back in my old town and it's a little nostalgic too. I have always loved Berlin and everyone, who's been here will know why; but of course, when I lived here I took it more for granted, just everything.

I think being away for a year will help me appreciate this city so much more. I guess, this is also something you can learn from your year abroad: appreciating the things that really are great in your home town. Of course I mean the perks of the big city (Lisbon is just nowhere close to the magnitude of Berlin), but as well some features of my study life at university, just some things that I don't find in Lisbon, but have never appreciated here.

And now I am here, on holiday so to say, without a clear schedule - it feels so different. All of my friends from uni are preparing for the upcoming exam on Thursday, so that leaves me with a lot of free time. I used the time today to just walk around this area, where this friend I'm staying with lives. So many shops I've never noticed before, so many little spots that are just lovely. Then I had lunch with my friend, who was having a break from studying. The Coffee shop where she studied looked like an Apple farm, Apple products everywhere, typical Berlin hipster people. But it made me smile somehow. It's just so ... BERLIN, you know?

I know now, I will hate to leave Lisbon, but I will love to come back to Berlin.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

I just found this video on Upworthy that discusses the gradually increasing violence against LGBT people in Russia, LGBT activists or even just people, who dress differently. Under the false prentences of "protecting children from pedophile assaults" followers of the movement "Occupy Pedophilia" go around randomly assaulting, humiliating, beating up harmless citizens to their liking. And the Russian government condones it, not officially of course, but it's obvious that they approve of this kind of Civil Lawmakers.

Can you imagine? These neo-Nazi gay bashers humiliate poor innocent people, calling them names, beating them up, urinating on them, forcing them to anally stimulate themselves with a beer bottle, and everything is caught on camera. And these victims can't even turn to the police for help, because they're like "Hey, if you're gay, that's your fault!".

I can't stand this, just writing this gives me nausea. Watching this video just made it so clear to me, this cannot stand!